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Untreed Reads - Gillian Roberts

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174 pages

English

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Single mother Billie August is frustrated with her boss and sleuthing mentor, the gruff, perpetually dissatisfied Emma Howe. So far, their relationship has been a personal and professional disaster. To top it off, Billie seems like the only person in town who thinks mentally disabled Gavin Riddock, accused of killing his only friend, might not be guilty, but her inability to turn up any hard evidence could cost Gavin everything. Now, illness at home and dead ends at work have frayed Billie's nerves. The last thing she needs is to come across Emma Howe in the warpath.Meanwhile, Emma's search for one girl's real mother is being foiled at every turn by the lies and misdirection of the girl's foster mother. When new clues suggest the case may have something to do with Gavin Riddock, seasoned Emma will have to learn to trust her young assistant, and together, mentor and protege must unravel the layers of posh Marin society to uncover the startling truth...

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Publié par	Untreed Reads
Date de parution	22 février 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781611878479
Langue	English

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Table of Contents
Copyright
Whatever Doesn’t Kill You
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty‑Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Whatever Doesn’t Kill You
By Gillian Roberts
Copyright 2016 by Judith Greber
Cover Copyright 2016 by Untreed Reads Publishing
Cover Design by Ginny Glass
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 2001.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Caught Dead in Philadelphia
Philly Stakes
I'd Rather Be in Philadelphia
With Friends Like These …
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
In the Dead of Summer
The Mummers' Curse
The Bluest Blood
Adam and Evil
Helen Hath No Fury
Claire and Present Danger
Till the End of Tom
A Hole in Juan
All ’ s Well that Ends
You Can Write a Mystery
Murder, She Did: 14 Killer Short Stories
Time and Trouble
The Amanda Pepper Mysteries: Bundle #1
The Amanda Pepper Mysteries: Bundle #2
The Amanda Pepper Mysteries: Bundle #3
The Amanda Pepper Mysteries: Bundle #4
The Amanda Pepper Mysteries: Bundle #5
www.untreedreads.com
Whatever Doesn’t Kill You
Gillian Roberts
One
The sign above the door said “MOVING ON.” Emma Howe wished that were true, that she were free to move on to lunch, instead of embarking upon another sure-to-be futile interview.
This was the sixth such interview and so far Emma had learned nothing useful except that nobody actually had known-or cared about not knowing-the accused. This was, she thought, a record of some sort. Never in her experience had so much energy and breath been expended for such pitiable results.
And she had tried because this case felt different from most. Emma’s reputation was based on going the distance, doing solid work. She believed that everyone was entitled to the best possible defense, but that didn’t mean she believed in the innocence of 99 percent of the accused she helped.
She didn’t believe in Gavin Riddock’s innocence, either. She thought he’d killed his best friend, Tracy Lester, in a fit of anger or confusion. She didn’t know his motives, and she feared he didn’t, either. From everything she’d read about him and the case, and from the interviews she’d already completed, it was clear that nobody really knew the twenty-two-year-old young man.
Gavin was different; robbed of oxygen during delivery, he was mentally slow. Because of that or because of his sense of being different, he was a shy, somewhat withdrawn loner who’d never found a comfortable place for himself.
He couldn’t explain himself clearly, couldn’t defend himself, and was even more withdrawn, in deep mourning for his lost friend, whether or not he’d killed her. And that terrible image was what stayed with Emma. Not that she had suddenly become a sentimental fool, but still, it bothered her to imagine him shackled, although she knew he wasn’t physically bound except by his own neurological and emotional ropes. And she knew his shackles were a life sentence, no matter what the courts ultimately said.
Which left it up to Emma to find the words that would explain Gavin Riddock, and so far, she’d found not a one. She pushed open the door of MOVING ON and took a deep breath.
Fourteen minutes later, when she checked her watch, she was hungrier than ever but no closer to the elusive truth of Gavin Riddock’s identity or guilt.
“This is ridiculous,” the young woman she’d been interviewing-or attempting to-said. “I don’t know anything about that murder, or about Gavin Riddock. Not anything real. And I don’t want any PI investigating me.”
Emma resisted the impulse to check her watch again. All she’d know if she did was how much more time she’d wasted. “I’m not investigating you. I’m trying to get a better sense of Gavin and Tracy, and you may know more than you think you do.”
Marlena Pugh tossed her platinum hair. Emma didn’t pay much attention to styles, but Marlena’s seemed to belong on an old movie reel. Her parents may have dreamed of a young Dietrich, but the girl was modelling herself after Monroe, with her lemon cotton-candy hair, polka dotted dress, red lips, and high-heeled shoes. Why would anyone want to replay the uncomfortable fifties, Emma wondered.
Monroe herself-even in her current state-would have provided the same amount of information as Marlena Pugh had. But she’d have been more entertaining-even dead. This girl confused looking catatonic with looking sultry.
Emma reminded herself that she was being paid for this boredom. That in fact, the less obliging the Marlenas of the world were, the slower their minds moved, the more hours Emma could bill the lawyer.
This knowledge did not improve her mood. She thought she was on the verge of coming down with something, felt it stalking her, trying to lay a claim. She’d decided she was too young at fifty-five for a flu shot-a possible mistake.
Now she’d be sick, her work undone and her business-already shaky because of the new, cheap searches available on the Internet-collapsing altogether.
She’d wind up on a freeway exit, holding up a cardboard sign, “will sleuth for food,” all because Marlena couldn’t or wouldn’t think.
“This isn’t an investigation in the sense that we aren’t looking for facts about the crime.” Emma was positive she’d said this already. “We’re preparing Gavin’s defense, and in order to present a clearer picture of who he was, we need to find out more than we know.” Scratch Marlena, even if the girl could prove she had a pulse. Emma had to wind this down, beat a quick and efficient retreat. “Maybe something you say will lead to someone else who knows something.”
In whose dreams? When a mentally-challenged young man is found with a murdered friend, her blood all over him, it’s “only” circumstantial, but how much more would a jury want? You didn’t need a motive when the accused was considered less than normal.
If the accused’s parents hadn’t been wealthy, the case would be over by now, open and shut, and Emma wouldn’t be cultivating germs in a nondescript moving company’s office, squeezed beside a desk, her chair banked by flattened cardboard boxes. She wouldn’t be the day’s entertainment for apathetic Marlena, and for a co-worker who was trying not to snoop too obviously as she counted inventory a few steps away.
If Gavin’s family hadn’t been swathed in assets, Emma also wouldn’t be listening to her own stomach growl as she watched Marlena pick at a fragrant take-out burger with still more fragrant fries. Was it feed a cold and starve a fever or the other way around? And what was it for the flu or the aches and pains of middle age?
“Couldn’t go to lunch today,” Marlena said sullenly. “Because of you.”
A real charmer, this girl. Emma put on her Granny Em face, which she wore only as needed as a form of makeup, or disguise.
Emma was indeed a grandmother, but not a Granny Em, that harmless, soft, ignorable, fluffy-minded sweet old thing. This was the face people expected, the acceptable middle-aged woman. The un-crone. The not-possibly-a-witch old lady. Powerless. “There’s nothing you can say that’s wrong, and no reason I should make you nervous,” she said sweetly.
Apparently, Granny Em worked even on Marlena. Her brow uncrinkled, and she smiled back tentatively. When she spoke, it was more gently than before, and even a shade less sullenly. But it was still without the hint of an operating intelligence. “Gavin Riddock killed Tracy, didn’t he? I mean I read the papers. So what’s to ask?”
“Help him get the best possible defense.” Emma skirted the question. Innocent till proven, she silently repeated, even when there’s blood on the hands. Not as if he’d confessed. The pathetic boy-man couldn’t really say if he’d done it or not. Emma tried a different path. “Did you know Tracy Lester?” she asked.
“ Know her?” Marlena shook the pale blond hair again. “I met her. She was in here now and then-worked across the street at the travel agency. We talked. So I couldn’t say I knew her, but I knew who she was. We were in a group together for a little while, that’s pretty much it. You get the difference, right?”
It amused Emma how idiots always assumed their listeners were as stupid as they were, thereby proving they were idiots. “What brought her over here?” Emma asked.
Marlena shrugged. “She was moving, I think. Is that right, Heather?”
The other girl in the office looked startled, then nodded.
“Moving herself. People do that, you know. People who are moving themselves still need boxes and the supermarkets, they cut them right up for recycling. Used to be you could get them there, but not anymore.”
Emma made note of this overlooked modern heartache. “Was that the only time she wa